1879 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



343 



old bees had returned to their old hive, and the 

 young ones, which had just received a queen, were 

 making no defense whatever. I raised the frames 

 and saw several hundred bees tearing off cappings 

 and struggling for the stores, paying no manner of 

 attention to the rightful occupants of the hive, nor 

 to the young queen, while the entrance was swarm- 

 ing with comers and goers. I at once took a decoy 

 hive with similar entrance, and, having removed the 

 nucleus a few feet, placed the decoy in its stead, and 

 emptied therein a pan of partly drained cappings, 

 and covered the hive. To enable the robbers to es- 

 cape from the nucleus, I placed it on top of the 

 decoy for ten or fifteen minutes, with the entrance 

 turned in another direction. Every robber returned 

 to the decoy, and, in a very short time, the nucleus 

 was perfectly quiet, when I gave it a new stand. 



The robbers worked at the cappings until after 

 dark and again the next day, until they had reduced 

 them to the consistency of chaff, when they gradu- 

 ally resumed legitimate business and made no fur- 

 ther trouble. The nucleus, although standing but a 

 few feet distant, was not further troubled, nor was 

 the queen hurt. Another case; when a frame had 

 broken down in a nucleus a few days afterward, it 

 was served in the same manner with the same result. 

 Give the robbers something to eat like cappings or 

 broken comb, and let them work at it until they 

 retire of their own accord, and no further robbing is 

 incited. S. W. Salisbury. 



Kansas City, Mo. 



Truly, friend S., yours is a novel mode of 

 treating robbing, but, from some similar 

 experiments I have made, I have no doubt 

 of its practicability. I wouid suggest that 

 the plan might be a little dangerous during 

 a very dry time, and that it should be prac- 

 ticed with great care, by beginners. Other 

 stocks might turn in, and, if the hive were 

 near others, they might be severely attacked 

 when the cappings gave out. To be sure, it 

 pays to take the journals. 



After writing the above, I went out into 

 the apiary, and took an extractor can nearly 

 full of broken honey left after transferring. 

 This was placed under the trees where the 

 tees were working peaceably and quietly on 

 the grape sugar, as illustrated on page 342. 

 They smelled the honey at once, and in 15 

 minutes there was a pretty fair buzzing 

 about the can. In 15 minutes more, the 

 apiary was in an uproar; and in an hour 

 from the start, we were obliged to close the 

 entrances to strong hives, to prevent rob- 

 bers from pushing their way into them in 

 such masses that resistance was simply out 

 of the question. It was a dangerous exper- 

 iment, but I allowed them to go on for some 

 time longer, until I was fully satisfied it 

 would end in the destruction of a great 

 many stocks, if it did not endanger the 

 whole apiary. What was to be done? I 

 tried putting a cloth cap over the can, but 

 found it would certainly smother piles of 

 bees. The can could not be carried away, 

 for they followed in frantic thousands. The 

 wire cloth house was just the thing. It was 



Eut over the honey, and, in a twinkling, we 

 ad great masses of bees clustered on the 

 outside, wanting to get in, and about as 

 many on the inside, wanting to get out. In 

 an hour, we had tolerable tranquility, and 



most of the hives that had been closed could 

 be opened by giving them but a small en- 

 trance. By letting them out of the wire 

 cloth house at intervals, they were allowed 

 to take all the honey, but the bees were so 

 daubed, blackened, and demoralized, that I 

 turned with relief to my clean grape sugar 

 feeders, and the bright healthy bees that 

 sipped the sweet water from the grooved 

 boards. 



Aug. 2d. — From every direction almost, 

 we have applications for drones. Drones 

 are wanted by the lb. and oz., and drone 

 brood is wanted. On looking over our own 

 apiary, we find little or no drone brood, and 

 the bees are driving out the live drones, as 

 fast as their young queens begin to lay. Of 

 course, we can keep the live drones by put- 

 ting them in queenless hives, or removing 

 the queens where they are. But how shall 

 we manage to have more drones reared? 

 There is not an old queen in our 250 hives, 

 except the imported ones. We must have 

 queens from different districts in Italy, to 

 furnish drones, and our feeding must be 

 kept up, so that they will keep on laying 

 drone eggs. So we have prepared 20 frames 

 of drone comb already, and we hope soon to 

 have live drones, as well as sealed drone 

 brood, to furnish those who may want them. 



A cloud oomes up to mar the beauty of 

 the out door feeding arrangement. Towards 

 evening, we were watching to see how many 

 bees went in other directions, than toward 

 our own apiary, and were dismayed to find a 

 very large force of black bees going exactly 

 in an opposite direction. These belong to 

 an apiary of black bees about a mile and a 

 half away. There is no getting around it. 

 While my colonies are prospering so finely, 

 those of all my neighbors are too, and even 

 the black bees in the woods, I presume, are 

 building up at my expense, and preparing 

 to swarm. If they go a mile and a half, I do 

 not know but that they go a mile more. 

 Notwithstanding this, grape sugar is so 

 cheap, and our out door feeding is so much 

 less labor than feeding each colony in its 

 hive, I rather think I shall keep on. It will 

 be helping somebody. 



Aug. 5m.— At about 7 this morning, the 

 silver hull buckwheat was so alive with bees 

 that it seemed as if the whole apiary must 

 be there. It did not last long, however, for 

 so many bees lick up all the honey very 

 quickly. The Simpson honey plant has so 

 far outstripped everything else as a honey 

 producer. 



INTRODUCING QUEENS AGAIN. 



Aug. 1th.— We received, Aug. 5th, 20 im- 

 ported queens. As 6 of these were dead, I 

 shall have to conclude that Tremontani is 

 losing the skill he has aleemed to have in 

 seasons previous to this. As 8 of these 

 queens were to be sent with bees with them, 

 it was very desirable to introduce them with 

 as little delay as possible. The whole 8 were 

 let loose at once, and were shipped the next 

 day. If they were not accepted by the first 

 hive, they were tried in another.. Two of 

 them were let loose in hives containing vir- 

 gin queens, just hatched. The bees were 

 quite willing to make the exchange. The 



